The blog of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders

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Many SfEP members share valuable professional advice in their personal blogs. We have collated our favourite recent blog posts below, covering a range of topics, including setting business goals for the new year, and advice on self-publishing, writing and social media.

If you currently publish a blog on your business website and would like to contribute to a future round-up, please contact our blog coordinator, Tracey Roberts.

Freelancers seeking advice on marketing their business online may well be advised at some stage to write a blog, and many SfEP members do already blog regularly (see our monthly round-ups for some of the great content that members share). But what if you are busy running your business and are concerned that writing a blog isn’t the best use of your valuable time? Or you are a newbie and feel you have nothing to write about? Or, astounded by the sheer volume of editorial blogs already out there, you feel you have nothing to add. These are all legitimate concerns, so here we examine some of the benefits of blogging for editorial pros – and others. Perhaps we can encourage you to take the plunge.

Increase website visibility

If you have incorporated a website into your marketing strategy, a blog hosted on the site is a fantastic way to improve the visibility of your business and establish your professional online identity.

In addition to demonstrating your editorial skills, each blog post will generate a new indexed page on your website for search engines to find, and this will increase the volume of traffic to your site. Your content may also generate what are known as long-tail search queries by search engines and your blog will appear when someone searches for information on that specific topic.

A blog can also generate inbound links when others use your content as a resource by generating referral traffic. The SfEP shares recent posts published by members on their business websites via Twitter, Facebook and the monthly social media round-up, and Book Machine republishes SfEP blogs (with the author’s permission, of course!).

But I don’t have a business website…

Don’t worry if you don’t currently have a business website as you can still raise your online profile. You could set up an independent blog on a site like WordPress or Blogger. Another option is to be a guest blogger for an established site. The SfEP blog relies on contributions from members and guest writers, and is a wonderful opportunity to share your ideas, expertise and contact details with a wider audience, which may lead to new business opportunities. Don’t be afraid to ask blog coordinators if there are any opportunities for guest writers or to contact other editors about collaborating on a piece for their site (many already publish guest posts). This can be a great opportunity if you have something specific you want to share but don’t have the time to commit to writing a regular blog of your own.

Showcase your expertise

A blog is a great way to share your editorial skills with your current client base and attract new customers by reaching a wider audience. If visitors to your blog find engaging content and valuable professional advice they will see that you are up to date in your field and have fresh business ideas. Regular blogging will also enhance your reputation with current clients and build trust with potential new customers. They are also more likely to check out your website in the future, potentially leading to the formation of new long-term business relationships.

Many blogs by editorial professionals are aimed not at clients but at other professionals. Publishing helpful advice and tips establishes you as an expert in the field and can lead to very fruitful long-term collaborations.

If you find you are answering the same questions again and again, from customers (what’s the difference between editing and proofreading?) or from other editors (what training do you recommend? How do I find my first job?), you could write a blog post on the subject and simply direct enquirers there.

Develop new skills

In addition to demonstrating existing skills, blogging can also help you develop new highly valuable ones. As well as practising your writing skills, you may also improve your knowledge of website design and digital marketing when you share your blog on social media. Before you know it, you will be creating infographics or sharing video blogs on your own YouTube channel…

Writing a blog makes you think about your business more deeply, opens your eyes to what’s going on in your field and generally increases your awareness. In conducting research for your blog, you will learn new things, discover different ways of working and other ways of looking at problems. While you may start out thinking ‘what am I going to write about?’, if you blog regularly and engage with others both there and on social media, you will start to see ideas for content all over the place.

Start new conversations

Linking your blog to social media will not only increase the volume of traffic to your website, it will also generate new conversations that will build your professional network. This gives you resources to call on when you need a skill you don’t already have or want to refer a customer to someone you trust. Conversely, being seen as knowledgeable in your field makes you a go-to person for those looking for help on a project or someone to pass a job on to.

But what can I add to what is already out there?

A quick rummage around the internet will reveal a staggering number of high-quality blogs from editorial professionals bursting with useful content, so you might legitimately ask what you can add. Surely it’s all been done before? Well, a lot of it has, but each of us has a unique take on aspects of our business, whether it’s a novel way to chase up unpaid invoices, a new skill you’ve acquired, or something in the news that has made you think, there’s always something new that can be said. Also, just because you’ve seen it all before doesn’t mean your audience has.

Newly qualified copy-editors and proofreaders shouldn’t be afraid to write a blog either. Newbie blog topics could include training courses, conferences or resources you have found useful; sharing your enthusiasm to learn and expanding knowledge will help to establish your business. Your blog posts will become part of your online portfolio that demonstrates your developing editorial expertise.

A word of warning

Regardless of your editorial experience, any blog you publish must contain original high-quality content that you can update regularly. It is also a good idea to have your blog posts proofread by someone else. After all, aren’t we always telling customers how difficult it is to proofread your own work? Perhaps you can arrange with another editorial blogger to proofread each other’s posts. If you can’t do that, leave a freshly written post for as long as you can and give it another critical read-through before hitting ‘Publish’.

Bear in mind that a professional blog requires commitment to reflect positively on you and your business, and a blog from an editorial pro needs to be correct and to read well. Of course it can be informal and friendly and reveal your personality, and most people appreciate that blog posts are sometimes produced very rapidly in response to breaking news, but a post littered with typos will not reflect well on an editorial business.

Share knowledge and experience and engage with your community

In sum, a blog is a great way to share information and experience and to enhance your online profile. It allows you to express your personality and build your brand. Engaging with other professionals helps establish you as a serious player and broadens your network of trusted individuals who can provide mutual support. There’s no doubt that blogging demands time and effort, though, and if, after reading the benefits, you still decide it’s not for you, then that’s good too.

In case you missed them, here are some of the brilliant members’ blogs published in May 2017. If you regularly publish a blog and would like your posts included in future blog round-ups please get in touch.

Our Scottish mini-conference at the beginning of May provoked a number of interesting blogs from attendees. Here they are all gathered in one place.

We all know that the SfEP exists to uphold editorial excellence. It does this through a membership structure that encourages all members to develop and hone their skills, and by running a strong programme of training and mentoring to support this. But the Society also exists for and through its members, a network of individuals from all sorts of backgrounds and doing many kinds of editorial work – our community of editorial professionals.

So, what makes us a community?

As community director, I’d say it involves sharing certain values and responsibilities. Our values include striving to be the best proofreaders and editors we can be. Our responsibilities (alongside delivering skilled and professional services to our clients, of course) include helping each other live up to those values, supporting those new to our profession and sharing experience among ourselves to enable us all to be successful.

But how do we provide that mutual support in a profession where many of us work at home or in relative isolation, and with members all over the world, including some in remote locations? Well, the SfEP has a number of activities and resources that help foster a sense of community. Some involve meeting face to face, while others use the internet to shrink the distance between us.

Meeting in person: local groups

The SfEP has 38 local groups throughout the United Kingdom, all organised by volunteer coordinators. Groups hold regular meetings, usually in an informal setting, and often, I’ve noticed, involving food and drink. What each group does varies, but all the events provide opportunities to pass on knowledge and to network.

“While [training] was excellent and really helped me develop best practice… it was the friendly exchanges with others in the local group, the chance to swap experiences, ask questions and share frustrations… that made all the difference to me wanting to keep going. There’s nothing quite like mutual support!”

Those who don’t yet belong to the Society can attend up to three local meetings. A number of people have commented that being able to ‘try before you buy’ like this helped them decide whether editing was right for them.

And for those who are remotely located, either within the UK or abroad, there’s always our Skype club, which ‘e-meets’ every month.

Meeting en masse: the conference

Our annual conference provides many stimulating and educational sessions, as well as plenty of opportunities for networking. However nervous people may feel about attending a big event like this, they always seem to go away with a smile on their face, having made new friends, and fired up with enthusiasm to put into practice everything they have learned.

The theme of this year’s conference is Context is key: Why the answer to most questions is ‘It depends’. You’ll be hearing much more about this before booking opens in March, so I won’t steal our conference director’s thunder. In the meantime, we have a number of blog posts that give a flavour of how people feel about attending conference.

The forums: an online watercooler

For times when we can’t meet face to face, the forums are a vital part of the SfEP community. Run by our internet director and his web content editors, and assisted in the day-to-day management by a team of voluntary moderators, the forums are a bit like an online watercooler, where members from all over the world talk about all things editorial, and some things non-editorial.

It’s here where the community spirit is perhaps most evident, with members sharing their experience and expertise on all things from getting started in proofreading and editing to advanced Word wrangling, to that knotty punctuation or grammar question. New members are always given a warm welcome, and more experienced members are generous with their advice and support.

Extending our community: blog and social media

Blog

This, our blog, is where we reach out beyond our community to show our face to the outside world. Tracey Roberts, another volunteer, coordinates it all and we aim to provide a range of interesting and entertaining content relevant to professional editors and proofreaders and anyone who uses editors and proofreaders. And – in exciting news – this has recently been recognised as we heard last week that the SfEP blog has made it through to the final eight of the UK Blog Awards 2017. The winners will be announced on Friday 21 April 2017, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

We are already putting together some great ideas for posts over the coming months, including tips on building your business for the new year, and editing and writing fiction, to coincide with National Storytelling Week at the beginning of February.

But what would you like to see here? Do let us know what types of posts you enjoy and find most useful, or if there’s a subject you’d like to see discussed here.

Social media

As you may know, the SfEP has been increasing its social media presence. This helps raise our profile and allows us to attract more members, enabling us to grow and extend what we can do for our community. Thanks to our splendid team of social media volunteers, every day we keep people informed about what the SfEP is doing as well as posting stimulating content related to editing, publishing and freelancing more generally. And we are increasingly engaging directly with members and non-members, spreading the word… and the love.

And finally… huge thanks to all our community volunteers!

You may have noticed a theme running through everything I’ve talked about here, and that is the huge contribution that is made by our volunteers. Without them, many of the SfEP’s community activities simply could not take place. So I’d like to end by saying a big thank you to every single person who puts their time and energy into making the SfEP what it is – a welcoming, supportive community of editorial professionals.

Eleanor Parkinson, one of our newer members, summed up the essence of the SfEP community spirit in a recent post on our Newbies forum:

“I don’t believe I have ever come across a professional organisation that provides as much practical, real-life help to people trying to get started in that industry.”

You are probably aware that many editors write great blogs for their own websites on a range of issues related to the world of editing, which are regularly shared via the SfEP Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The social media round-up has therefore been expanded to introduce a new section with some good posts from SfEP members’ blogs published each month that we think you will enjoy reading.

If you write a blog and would like to share your work in a future social media round-up, please get in touch (blog@sfep.org.uk).

Blogs round-up

Catherine Dunn recently attended the Writing East Midlands conference where Cressida Downing gave an excellent workshop on how authors can best work with editors. Catherine shares the tips provided in her blog Working with an editor.

The SfEP blog highlights

We’ve covered a lot of ground in the SfEP blog posts over the past year, and there are lots of great tips and advice for editors and proofreaders, as well as some thought-provoking opinions. In case you missed them, or just for the chance to read them again, here is my pick of the highlights, plus the rest of 2015’s ‘best bits’.

If you would like to write a post for the SfEP blog in 2016, don’t be shy! You can see that we cover a wide range of topics from advice and tips, to professional development and musings on freelance life. We also welcome guest posts from non-members. See the how to contribute page for more information.

Joanna Bowery is the SfEP social media manager. As well as looking after the SfEP’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and the SfEP blog, she offers freelance marketing, PR, writing and proofreading services as Cosmic Frog. Jo is an entry-level member of the SfEP and a Chartered Marketer. She is active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Proofread by SfEP entry-level member Anna Black.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP.

What exactly do editors and proofreaders get up to every day? This is a question we will be exploring in a new, regular feature: A day in my life. We start off with an insight into the life of SfEP regional development director Lucy Metzger.

I’m at work the moment my feet hit the floor around 6.15 a.m., but I don’t start getting paid until about 9.00 a.m. In between I’m waking teenagers, making teas and coffees (I must add that later in the day my teenagers sometimes make ME a cuppa) and packed lunches, waking teenagers again, telling teenagers I don’t know the whereabouts of their headphones/maths jotters/black-cardigan-no-not-THAT-black-cardigan, waking teenagers again and finally ensuring that they all end up in school. I drive home on a wee stretch of country road to escape the school-run traffic. That little drive, listening to the tail end of the Today programme, eases my transition from Mother Lucy to Editor Lucy.

There are many things I miss about office life, and I don’t know what I’d do without my Glasgow group companions, but I do relish that solitude as I sit down at my computer to begin work. Ideally the tasks I do between 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. are those that require my best thinking, as far as that goes. What’s ‘best’? Creative, analytical, intuitive – different jobs require different kinds of thoughts, but my mind is definitely better in the morning. A lot of the time I’m copy-editing academic books and textbooks. I usually conceive of the editing as being in two phases: the bits-and-pieces and then the reading. The morning is my best time for the reading. It’s also when I mark mentoring assignments, which requires careful thought as each mentee raises new kinds of queries and issues; and the morning is good for any writing I’ve got to do, e.g. reports or proposals for the SfEP council, training materials, a note for Editing Matters, or even a blog post.

My lunch isn’t a single meal – I snack: a cracker with cheese, a bowl of muesli, some leftover rice, some fruit. If I’m starting a new book then I’ll typically begin it in the afternoon and do routine checks: chapter titles vs table of contents, numbering of illustrations, styling of headings and subheadings, checking references and notes, etc. These tasks are good for afternoon. I don’t want to give the impression that I become completely incompetent at that time (the jury’s still out on that one), but these activities don’t exert my mental muscles quite as much. Such checking almost always throws up a few things to ask the author about, and this makes an opportunity to establish communication by means of some relatively lightweight queries – ‘which version would you prefer for the title of Chapter 3?’ – rather than plunging straight into the nitty-gritty – ‘I wonder if you could clarify what you mean by “if the subject (the individual is individual) is determined, yet only as being undetermined, then that which determines the subject, i.e. the predicate (the particular), is taken to be in-determining any determination”?’ I’m not kidding. Anyway, that kind of query is a morning query and definitely belongs in the second or third email to the author, not the first.

For the last few years, I’ve used the school day to predict exactly how many hours I’d have between sitting down at my computer and the first ‘hello’ of one of my kids coming in the door (they walk home). This year, though, my oldest is in sixth form and so may turn up at any time. I don’t like pointless interruptions, but it’s lovely to be interrupted by that. We have a little chat and then when she starts wondering about food I turn her loose on the leftovers in the fridge. I then get back to work, and so, I can only suppose, does she. Then the other two come home, and on goes my Mother Lucy hat again, which feels really nice.

How does this compare with a typical day in your life? We’d love to hear about what you get up to. If you’d like to share your ‘day in the life’ story, please email smm@sfep.org.uk.

Lucy Metzger grew up in Illinois and began proofreading in 1987. She edited for Macmillan in London from 1990 to 1995; she then moved to Scotland and went freelance. She is based in Glasgow. Lucy works mostly on academic and educational materials. She has three children, is an amateur musician, likes cooking and taking walks, and is learning to crochet.

6. Tips on tact and tone. You may be an excellent editor, but how’s your bookside manner? Pat McNees provides some tips on tact and tone for copy-editors on the Writers and Editors blog. (Posted on Twitter 1 December.)

10. Warm-glow proofreading. SfEP training director Stephen Cashmore got us all into the Christmas spirit of goodwill with a heart-warming tale of a time when he offered to proofread a book for nothing. (Posted on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn on 23 December.)